


And you can have this heart to break

by Polyhexian



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence, M/M, POV Second Person, Suicidal Ideation, This is set right after Cyclonus finds out tailgate is dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:33:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24601654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polyhexian/pseuds/Polyhexian
Summary: This is not how this story goes. Whatever happens today, you are not going to deal with what happened before, you are not going to talk about it, you are not going to ruin anything on accident, you are going to ruin it on purpose, because you can, because you want to, because you will go down fighting, death in body or in spark. You will not be saved.
Relationships: Cyclonus/Tailgate (Transformers), Cyclonus/Tailgate/Whirl (Transformers), Cyclonus/Whirl (Transformers)
Comments: 38
Kudos: 72





	1. To heal the wounds from lovers past, until a new one comes along

Time passes sluggishly, dim starlight passing over you through the window like distant optical displays casting disapproving gazes over your plating. You're used to that. The floor feels warm against your back, thrum of Skip's engine through your own, anticipation of return in your fuel lines. 

You miss Tailgate. 

Man, you really shouldn't. You're pretty sure he never even liked you. You've seen the footage from your habsuite from when Atomizer shot you in the head and and even the phut of the nudge gun as it jostled your brain casing didn't compare to the knife twist in your spark at Getaway's last words before you passed out. 

_Not even the famous Nutjob can outrun a thought bullet. That's what he calls you, you know. We laugh about it._

You've always been stupid, you know that, but you'd been exceptionally dumb to start getting attached to the little guy. Especially since you knew Getaway was going to integrate him into the Megatron plan at some point. Not that you remember any of that now- you wish you could remember that, because maybe then whatever part of you disliked him enough to go along with the get-him-killed plan could pipe up and strangle the part of you that's left that thought you were friends. 

Of course you weren't friends. The closest thing you have had to a friend since your store closed is Cyclonus, and in all likelihood, he's staring out the window right now and brooding about whether he wants to go back to trying to kill you again or not. Your weird nemesis relationship was at least something consistent, and neither of you have a fucking clue how to be nice to people. If you're lucky, maybe he'll turn around, walk over, and stab you in the chest right now. Put you out of your fucking misery.

You turn your helm to look at him. Even stuck in this little boat like sardines people are avoiding him like the plague. Without the little guy around to tame the savage beast he's as dangerous as you are. You can still see the pock marks on his back plating beneath the patchwork repairs and slightly off colour paint splotches. He's miserable. It's your fault. It was the right thing to do but maybe the wrong time to do it and now he's miserable and it's your fault and you shouldn't give a shit about that but you do. You wish he wanted to kill you but he doesn't and you're miserable that he's miserable. You would rather see him happy even if he never fucking talked to you again than see him keep wallowing like this. You want it to stop and it doesn't. 

You turn your helm back up to the ceiling and offline your optic, letting the self pity wash over you. You were forged to fight, not for friendship. You don't know if he's ever going to speak to you again and you don't know why that bothers you so much. 

You're halfway into recharge when you hear the fighting break out. By the time you're sitting up Rewind is unconscious and covered in energon with a slash through his chest and Chromedome has clocked the closest thing you have to a friend in the jaw. There's a look in Cyclonus's optics you're too familiar with, a burning desire to lose a fight, to hurt the good hurt and get what you deserve. You scramble to your pedes and throw yourself between them before he can get another punch in. 

"Chromedome, back off, this has nothing to do with you," you wave a claw at him and you see the hate in his visor, and it's probably earned. Kimia was pretty rough, but it wasn't your friends that died, _your_ friend is right here. You turn back to him. "It's Tailgate, isn't it? Isn't it?"

He breaks down sobbing into your chest. 

It was hardly the reaction you thought you expected and somehow at the same time you were ready for it, arms up to catch him and pull him in close as his claws dig into your back, clinging, holding on for dear life, voicebox spitting out broken, hacking sobs. You've never seen him cry before. You hate it. 

"He's dead," you make out between his frantic gasps, "I've killed him." 

"What?" That doesn't even make sense. He wasn't even there.

"He was only there because of me," he continues "It didn't work. It didn't work, he's dead."

He's gone virtually limp in your grasp, like the words have taken everything from him, his tempered persona, his spark, his motor control. He just clings to you and cries and keeps saying words like spontaneous spark combustion and fits and fault. He is a stone pouring out blood and you have no hands to cup to catch it. 

"It's not your fault," you tell him, and you don't even give a shit if it is, "Bad things happen to good people for no reason."

"I should have died the night I attacked Megatron," he whispers, strutless, "I should have died doing something that mattered."

"Shut up," you snap, crushing him tighter, "You don't want to be dead."

"I do," he insists, "I can't, Whirl. I can't live without him. I want to be dead."

The wall is a few feet away and you wrench him from your shoulder and slam him against and you don't give a flying frag who is watching. "Don't you say that. Don't you say that to me, you son of a glitch."

He stares at you, miserable, face shredded, optics hollow, "Do you feel like this all the time? How can you stand it?" 

"I said shut _up_!" you snarl the words at him, claws dug tight around his shoulders as you push him up against the inside wall of Skip, forehead shoved against his to glare into his optics, "You don't know shit. You think you want to die? Fuck you. You don't get to cut and run on me now." 

"Listen-"

"No, _you_ listen! The day we met you saved my life, my worthless, fucked up life and you didn't give me a goddamn choice. You said to me, I promise I will kill you and you won't know when and I knew I could never let you have the satisfaction and that is the _only_ reason I am here today, so congratulations, you get to reap the benefits of your fucking decision, because I am _not_ letting you die, bastard." Your pincers tighten around his armpit joints, digging harshly into the metal, but he doesn't protest, still slumped strutless in your grasp, "I won't let you." 

Optical lubricant streams down his face past festering injuries dug deep into the metallica. "Why? Why do you care so much? We aren't friends."

"Like hell we're not," you hiss, and you shove the lip of your helm casing into his mouth, without even thinking, desperate to shut him up. You belatedly expect him to shove you away or maybe even stab you but he does neither of those things. Instead he accepts your bullshit excuse for a kiss, lips on your wretched helm casing, arms around your neck, desperate, clinging, searching, face moist and chest heaving. He doesn't want this from you. But you're all he has. 

"Whirl!" 

You whip your head around, orienting towards Rodimus's voice, wherever he is behind you, " _What_ , Captain?" you snap, the word like a cuss in your vocalizer. 

"Whirl, look out the _window_! Get down!" 

"What?" you say, fury lost in confusion, and when you look at the window you see his concern- some kind of bullshit portal is pulling your ship into it, because of course it is, things are never normal around here. Gravity is starting to give as the ship nosedives into a spin and you grab Cyclonus as the two of you hit the ground and go skidding across the floor, clutching each other like newsparks in the sudden chaos. 

"Fuck!" you slam helm first into someone else's flailing leg and see stars, first in your head and then everywhere else and you realize in horror the ship has cracked open like an egg and your limbs go wild, grasping, and somehow you find his wrist and slam a pincer on it, holding for dear life to whoever's leg kicked you with the other. He looks back up at you, not even fighting the pull of the vacuum as it tries to tear him away from you.

"Just let me go," he says over internal comms, face a mask of resignation, mouth a thin line and he slips ever so from your grip, and you tighten it so hard the plating buckles beneath your pincers, clamping down in a death grip.

"If you think for one Primus damned second I won't dedicate the rest of my life to keeping you alive out of spite alone then you don't fucking know me at all," you comm back, and the vacuum pull is starting to _hurt_ , your shoulder joint making a _crack_ as something within snaps under the pressure, "Tailgate ain't the only one who's ever cared about your miserable aft!"

"Are- are you saying you-" his optics widen, only just so, and you hadn't even _thought_ about it before but in this moment, holding his wrist with all the force you can muster, fighting him both in body and spirit for his life, realizing only suddenly how much it matters to you, you _know_ the answer like you know how to pump fuel and how to fire a gun, and you reset your vocalizer to say the words in your own voice, but the vacuum tears the sound away and the words go unsaid as whoever you were holding onto loses _their_ grip, and just like that, all of you are plunged into cold space and its silent void as darkness takes over your senses, pincer still clamped desperately around his forearm. 

You wake up dead, supposedly. You've never been particularly religious, not even before the war, not even before the empurata. You've never really believed in the afterspark. If anyone had ever cared enough to ask you what happens when you die, you probably would have said "rot," but no one had ever cared enough to ask you. 

You stumble into the group dazed and confused and having some difficulty figuring out what just happened, but the second Cyclonus realizes this is the afterspark, that everyone here is dead, he's gone. You should have seen that coming. You should have seen a lot of this coming. You know better than to get involved in other people and you know better than to give a shit, because giving a shit _hurts_. 

When you reach him he's hugging Tailgate like a life preserver, as if the world has righted itself, finally. You stand twenty paces away and stare up at the big glowing matrix in the sky and wonder if it's going to have some mercy and take you now, but maybe you're too far away, and it doesn't. 

The whole thing is over in a matter of minutes, and then it's all sparkeaters and running and shenanigans, but soon enough you're back on the Lost Light, looking out the window at yet another mysterious portal, but at least you're waiting a little while to go into this one, until the rest of the crew is cured from being monsters. That's good, at least.

Cyclonus and Tailgate are probably finishing up their Conjunx Rites about now, so you head back to your room alone. You're kind of surprised no one looted this, but you don't really own too much other than broken clocks anyway, so maybe you aren't that surprised. 

You pull a few storage boxes from the closet and start cleaning up all the clocks, stacking them nearly in the crates. There's a few weapons stashed around, too, in hidden compartments behind loose plating. You stack those in the second box and neatly reattach all the wall tiles, straightening up the room until it's tidy, as if no one had ever lived here at all, and then you go sit on your recharge slab, cross your legs, and stare at the portal torn out of the sky beyond the window. You don't know what's inside it yet but it won't be good, whatever it is. Something inside you says _this is the end_ , but you don't know if that's a premonition or just you being defeatist, as usual.

Something is ending, anyway. If you're good at anything, it's putting all your feelings into a box and never ever ever addressing them, but you sure as hell opened the box, and there sure were a lot of feelings hiding in there.

> [14:34:16] Cyclonus: Whirl, where are you? 

You don't respond. You don't need or want his pity. You're happy for him. If you could have pressed a button to bring Tailgate back for him you would have done it, every time. Hell, not just for him. You're a big fan of the little guy. He missed the whole war. It makes him fun to hang out with, let's you forget what you are for a little while. You don't suspect you'll be hanging out with either of them very much, though, after this. This is beyond awkward. You've played your hand and you're out of cards, now.

> [14:36:45] Cyclonus: Please, I want to speak to you before we leave. 

For one moment you had let the delusion that someone might need you wash over you and change _everything_ and now, it's too late to go back and fix it. You are not needed, barely tolerated. Nothing has changed, but your ability to live with the status quo has, without your permission. He was right, when he said you weren't friends. You've never been friends. You've been enemies and you've been shipmates but you've never been friends, and you were stupid to think otherwise.

> [14:37:30] Cyclonus: Tailgate and I both need to speak with you. It's important. 

You block them both. The ship lurches forward and the overhead announcement begins, Rodimus telling you all to hang onto your butts as you dive once more into the unknown. You cycle one long vent, and close your optic, waiting. _This is the end_ , a little voice says in your spark and you wonder if that's what your conscience sounds like, since it's been so long since you heard it. 

"Grab hold of someone you love," Rodimus says, crackling static, "We're going through." Your claws stay empty when the world whites out around you. 


	2. And still I feel I've said too much, my silence is my self defense

A lot of things happen, a lot of wacky time things, alternate universes and dead gods and planets with fists and teeth and for the whole of it you linger on the edges by yourself, keeping your distance, field and plating flared and hissing _come no closer_ and no one does. 

You see their optics on you in the brief moments of respite when you wait for things to happen, see them move toward you and you make sure they never reach you. This is not how this story goes. Whatever happens today, you are not going to deal with what happened, you are not going to talk about it, you are not going to ruin anything on accident, you are going to ruin them on _purpose_ , because you can, because you want to, because you will go down fighting, death in body or in spark. You will not be saved.

It's not until Ultra Magnus gets shot in the chest that you realize what's happening for real. You're surrounded on all sides, his Matrix is laying on the ground and so is he, unconscious, and you know like you know how to pump fuel and fire a gun, you know this is the end. A good ending, actually, the kind you don't deserve. The kind of ending where you take a deep breath and let go with no regrets, and you grab the Matrix just as a plasma bolt hits your waist and blows off both your legs.

Your HUD is flared with warnings, bright and begging and you can feel it in your gut, the leak in your fuel tank and you know. It's time. Your claws shake on the handholds of the Matrix, pulling weakly with the little strength you have left, because you won't need it anymore. This is it. This is the end. 

You unblock Cyclonus and Tailgate on internal comms and check your messages, even as you tighten your flimsy grip, offline your optic, and _pull_. 

> [14:37:45] Cyclonus: Did you just _block_ me?  
> [14:38:30] Cyclonus: Fine. When you change your mind and read this, message me. I will be waiting. 
> 
> [14:38:38] Tailgate: we're going through the rift now. you should be here.   
> [14:38:45] Tailgate: wtf you can block people?
> 
> [14:45:16] Cyclonus: Still blocking comms?  
> [14:45:56] Cyclonus: Incredible. I can't tell if you're being petty or self destructive. Whirl, I am not planning on _ignoring_ what happened, I _want_ to talk to you. Please, before anything happens to any of us. 
> 
> [14:56:13] Tailgate: are you really just going to stand over there and ignore us? we could all die whirl  
> [14:59:22] Tailgate: cyclonus told me what happened. i wanted to say thank you. at least now i know if something happens to me he will be okay. I hope you are okay, too
> 
> [15:02:33] Cyclonus: Please, Whirl.  
> [15:30:42] Cyclonus: The blast doors are down. Please, please respond, please tell me they picked you up. Please tell me you're safe.   
> [15:31:34] Cyclonus: Dammit, Whirl, stop this! Answer me!   
> [15:32:21] Cyclonus: If you allow yourself to die without addressing what happened between us I will never forgive you. I will drag you kicking and screaming from the afterspark if I must but you are not going to be allowed to convince yourself I hate you now, you are not permitted to believe our friendship is over, that your concern is not reciprocated. Answer me.
> 
> [15:33:04] Tailgate: please be safe.  
> [15:45:16] Tailgate: well good news over here a big eyeball says that im probably gonna die so. i mean. cyclonus is arguing with him rn but i guess i wanna talk to you.  
> [15:46:03] Tailgate: i know you helped getaway. i know you also changed your mind at the last minute. i wish I could talk to you and hear your side, what you were thinking but if you wont talk then i just… dont know. why tell me about the fits? are we friends? are you just friends with cyclonus? i dont understand you. ive never understood you. mostly tho i dont get why everybody hates you so much, as if youre any worse than anybody else.   
> [15:47:10] Tailgate: you remember when you used to come to movie night? i liked sitting with you because you always had really funny things to say about everything. i miss that.   
> [15:47:38] Tailgate: after everyone found out i was lying about the bomb disposal and everything, everyone treated me with kid gloves, like some dumb sparkling who didnt know anything and needed to be protected but not you. you treated me exactly the same and i always appreciated that about you. im mad at you about the getaway thing but- i dont want to STAY mad, i want to talk to you, i want to work it out, i want to be friends again  
> [15:48:49] Tailgate: please answer. i dont know how much time we have left. 
> 
> [16:34:27] Cyclonus: I suppose this is it, then. We have reached the end of the universe itself and you would still rather suffer in silence than let anyone help you. I don't know if I have a right to be surprised.   
> [16:35:34] Cyclonus: Thank you, for what you said. It meant something. It means something. I have never felt such despair before, that kind of unfathomable inner turmoil, and I wish I had handled it better.   
> [16:35:59] Cyclonus: I still wonder the answer to the question I asked you- do you feel like that all the time? I've not forgotten the state I found you in when we first met. I know the plan before Getaway moved on to Tailgate was for the death to be yours, and I know what happened in Mauler Territory, the soft termination. Are you so desperate to die? I have never before felt that urge, never even considered it, but it consumed me, took me over like a virus, and I felt so powerless before its influence. Do you feel that all the time? How do you bear it?   
> [16:36:43] Cyclonus: I have not been a friend to you, Whirl. I have asked your help and I have asked your advice and I have taken your concern and not returned it. In my darkest moment you came for me- I have watched on as you have suffered without interference for too long. It ends today.   
> [16:37:45] Cyclonus: We are going to survive this, Whirl, we are going to succeed and when we do we are going to speak. I am going to make it right. I am going to be a friend to you. You were right to hang on when I wanted to let go, and I've learned the hard way that it's my turn now, to cling on. I won't let you push us or me away. Not this time. Not anymore. Never again.  
> [16:38:18] Cyclonus: I will be waiting for you, at the end. Survive. Please. 

You wrench the Matrix open, arms hitting the ground with a thunk as the photonic crystals within are released, your job finished. Fire continues to rage around you, plasma blasts continue to burst on impact and your vision goes hazy, optical feed giving up the ghost while you quickly run out of fuel as you bleed out on the ground. 

> [16:58:13] Whirl: im sorry

The comm actually _hurts_ to send, the spasm of electricity that crackles through your antennae sparking painfully in your audials, some disconnected piece making the whole process unpleasant. 

> [16:58:16] Cyclonus: Have you done it?
> 
> [16:58:25] Whirl: its done. got my legs blown off  
> [16:58:28] Whirl: i aint gonna make it, cy  
> [16:58:29] Whirl: im sorry

You take a rattling invent that shudders your system and you hear tinkling in your chest cavity, bits and pieces loose and broken shaking out, and your feed dims further, only able to barely make out the distant stars above you and the distant hum of battle. 

> [16:58:45] Cyclonus: Hold on. I'm coming. 
> 
> [16:58:49] Whirl: sorry i blocked you. seemed the right thing to do at the time 
> 
> [16:58:52] Cyclonus: Forgiven. Hold on. I'm coming. 
> 
> [16:59:01] Whirl: i do feel that all the time
> 
> [16:59:03] Cyclonus: You can tell me about it when I've reached you. 
> 
> [16:59:07] Whirl: youve been a good friend. probably my only one. dont think you havent okay
> 
> [16:59:12] Cyclonus: I know what you're doing. Don't give up. I'm coming for you. 

Your optical display cuts out and leaves you alone in your HUD, reading system warnings that tell you you're missing your legs, you've damaged your fuel pump, you've lost visuals, all things you know. They beep and blip and flicker and beg you to do something, but it's too late. Maybe it was always too late. 

Born to die, you were. One long road of suffering just to end it here, broken like a toy, alone, the same way as you lived. The world goes on without you, as it must. You shouldn't have messaged him. Maybe you could have gone unmourned, just one more number, one more daily, and no one would have to suffer anymore because of you than they already have.

> [17:03:05] Whirl: tell the little guy im sorry for everything. cuz i am. im happy you two are happy. im not the jealous type.   
> [17:03:08] Whirl: im sorry i kissed you
> 
> [17:03:09] Cyclonus: I am not.   
> [17:03:11] Cyclonus: I am over Mesmerica. Where are you? I cannot see you. There is too much going on. 
> 
> [17:03:13] Whirl: optics off. dunno. i told you its too late
> 
> [17:03:15] Cyclonus: Not as long as you're still alive, it's not too late. Coordinates, Whirl. 
> 
> [17:03:19] Whirl: it was too late before we even met. im good to go, man. just let me go
> 
> [17:03:22] Cyclonus: Never again. Coordinates!
> 
> [17:03:27] Whirl: you dont owe me shit cyc
> 
> [17:03:38] Cyclonus: I owe you the truth, and the truth is that you were right. Important things must be said, must be known, and I have kept to myself my feelings for too long, let you and Tailgate both fester in the misery of not knowing, of believing you are not loved, but you _are_. We are friends, Whirl, we _are_ , you have cared about me, you have been honest with me, you have mattered to me, and I cannot lose you now.   
> [17:03:45] Cyclonus: Coordinates. Please. 
> 
> [17:03:50] Whirl: pinging now

You can't see, but you ping him, which should orient him to your location. You're weak, and a coward, and you don't really want to die. You're making a selfish decision, because the odds are that he's going to have to watch you die in his arms while he tries to drag you off for help, and that's only going to make it all worse. You aren't doing him a favour by letting him find you. 

You try to reset your optics when you feel hands on you, but it's past that now. Too late again. 

"I've got him," Cyclonus's voice says, "He's lost a _lot_ of energon- he's not responding."

> [17:05:04] Whirl: i aint dead yet loser

"I take that back, he's responding over private comms," Cyclonus amended, though Whirl wasn't sure who he was speaking to. 

"His frametype has their fuel tank located low in their abdomen," Megatron's voice crackles over the radio, "Check to see if it's punctured." 

"On it," Cyclonus responds, and it's weird how you feel pressure but not pain, "Yes, it's been ruptured, there's a crack along its length." 

"You need to weld it shut and he needs an immediate transfusion. I'm on my way."

> [17:05:30] Whirl: what, megs is gonna save me now? figured the old man would be happy i was gone 

"He says he's surprised you want to help him," Cyclonus says, but he's starting to sound far away. 

"Can he hear me? Listen, Whirl," his voice is deep, a rumble in the distance like thunder, "I understand now what I did not then. It wasn't your fault."

You slip offline, hoping against hope that this isn't how you die, for once. 


	3. So I would choose to be with you, as if the choice were mine to make

The first thing that comes back to you is your sense of touch. The room is warm and there are cables poked into you all over the place and you can sense, only dimly, the presence of another, and hearing comes next. Ventilation cycles that aren't yours, the soft clink of moving armor, the tick-tick-tick of diagnostic machinery nearby. 

You online your optic, blurry and blinking, recalibrating sensornets and realigning displays, rebooting like you haven't in ages. 

"Whuf," you mumble, which is not exactly a word, but it's the sound that comes out, anyway. Something tightens around your claw and you manage to focus your vision on it to see what- a hand. His hand. 

"You're awake," his voice is a rumble, almost as sleepy as yours. He must have been recharging. You pull your optic away from your intertwined claws to find his face, cast in shadow in the night time medibay half-light.

"'M wake," you slur, which is slightly closer to words. You barely have time to mourn the loss of warmth on your claws before it's replaced by warmth elsewhere as he wraps his arms around your neck, an awkward horizontal half hug that makes your spark stutter and flutter and cry out in want.

"I am glad you are alright," Cyclonus murmurs, beside your audial, voice soft and laced with static. 

"Don't," you manage to say, and he pulls away. It hurts, the loss, but you ignore it. It will hurt later to remember, the more you have it now and the less you'll have it then. 

"How are you feeling?" he asks. 

"Like shit," you say, which is true. Your whole frame hurts, and the longer you're awake the more you become aware of that. 

"Do you want a circuit dampener?" 

"Fuck no," you spit.

He frowns, and you can see the pity in his optics and you resent it. "Can we speak now?"

"Ain't nothin' to talk about," you assert, stubbornly, "It didn't matter."

"Of course it mattered," his hands find your claws again and you can't bring yourself to pull away, no matter how much you know you should.

"Whirl," his voice is so soft and earnest, like you've never heard it before, and it makes your spark ache in ways it hasn't before, "Stop."

"...If I'd known shortstop was still alive I wouldn't have kissed you," you tell him, looking away. You aren't alone in the medibay, though that shouldn't surprise you. Other people got hurt, but at least you're the only ones awake. 

"I know," he says, "but I'm glad you did."

"Don't say that. I don't want your pity."

"You don't have it. I am glad you did because I did not realize until that moment how much- how much you matter to me. If I lost you- you _or_ Tailgate, I- you are important to me, Whirl."

"Right."

There’s a moment of quiet, where you focus on the tick-tick-tick of machinery, the vent cycles of recharging Cybes on the other slabs, the hum of the dimmed lights overhead. 

“Rodimus says we should arrive at Cybertron by the morning,” he tells you, mercifully letting it drop.

“Cool.”

“Where will you go? Do you have any plans?”

“Dunno,” you shrug, “Doubt there’s any place in the world for a Whirlibird without a war to wage.”

Goddamn pity optics. Ain’t nothing you hate more.

“Tailgate and I aren't planning to stay on Cybertron," he says, making circles on your claw with his thumb, "Come with us." 

"Don't be stupid," you say, keeping your optic steady on the ceiling, "I'm not tagging along on your honeymoon."

"Hardly a honeymoon. We haven't finished our rites yet." 

You snap your head toward him and scoff, "Are you joking? What is _wrong_ with you? What are you _waiting_ for?" 

The door hisses open, snatching your attention when Tailgate stumbles in, panting, “Whirl!” he says, as loud as he dares.

"Whirl," Cyclonus says, tightening his grip, "We were waiting for _you._ "

It's like all the air has been sucked from your frame and cast you once more into the void, like the ship has turned off the artificial gravity, like the world has turned and left you here. "Don't say that," you whisper, "You can't say stuff like that to me. You know that."

"I have not been fair to you," his other hand folds over your claw, holding but not confining, you could escape if you could force yourself to pull away but something is stopping you and it isn't him, even as the door shuts behind Tailgate and he joins Cyclonus beside you with those earnest yearning optics that are making your tanks flip, "But when you passed out, and I was trying to keep you online until Megatron arrived… I imagined my life without you, the same way I did when I thought I had lost Tailgate, and it- it is not the life I want. I am not easily frightened, Whirl, but… I was afraid to lose you. I am afraid to lose you."

"You can't say stuff like that to me," you repeat, uselessly, because your spark is starting to hurt, and it makes you think of the early days of the war when you would pick at your spark chamber, circling out where they might cut metallica to forge a symbol for a faction that would never have you, "You know that."

"I've said it," he states, faceplate grave and earnest all at once, and when he holds your claw to his face and presses his lips against it, both hands around pincers you can't possibly pull away, terrified of what might happen if you do, "And I have not said it lightly. I can not and will not bury my truth within my spark any longer. I love Tailgate. I love you. I will respect your wishes but I will not lie to you about it." 

You snatch your claw away and pull your legs back, sitting up and backing as far away as you can on the berth, which isn't very much. Your vision is tunnelling, HUD flashing redundant warnings for things you know aren't true while it tries to find the problem that it won't. 

"You can't do that. You aren't allowed- I won't be a side lay. I already done enough to him, I won't do that," you wheeze, vents stuttering, plating pulled tight and coiled against your frame as if he might attack you.

"That's not what he’s asking you," Tailgate says, leaning up against the berth, too short for this, " _We_ are asking you to join _us_."

"I- I don't know," you say, uncertain, but gravity is pulling you back the way you came and you know your will is slipping, "It ain't normal. It won't work." 

"Fuck normal," Cyclonus says, the cuss an amusingly unfamiliar word on his glossae- you'd expect something more flowery from him, 'fuck normal' is the kind of thing _you'd_ say, "I think it will." 

"I'm gonna fuck it all up," you remind him, because he's clearly forgotten, "You know that, right? You know I fuck things up and I'm gonna fuck this up too if you let me." 

"We won't let you, then." 

The last walls of your will crumble like dry dirt and you crawl back into his embrace, slotted in like a puzzle piece, both their hands on your back like something breakable that needs to be held with care and caution. At some point it's all going to come crashing down and when it does it will take you with it, but you have this moment for at least a moment more, and you aren't ready to let go, yet. 

* * *

They're really dramatic. You grumble and you groan and complain about the whole thing because Tailgate's got approximately ten trillion ideas for his wedding day and Cyclonus is absolutely prepared to give him every single thing he asks for, even if it's kind of a rush, getting it together at the last minute for your lap around the planet before the Lost Light gets scrapped. Primus, he wants _singing_. 

He seems particularly horrified to learn your vocalizer can only make one note, but no big deal. You don't really want to learn Old Cybertronian anyway. It's not your wedding to ruin, at least, you were pretty firm on not doing that yet or maybe ever, you don't like the formality of it. You'd rather stick to being the weird tagalong, at least, for now. You haven't decided, yet, but it's hard to think about ditching when you're getting dragged around by both claws all day to string up blue and purple ribbons and yell at Swerve to get out the good booze, the subspace filtered stuff you _know_ he's been hiding. If you're gonna be the idiot with two boyfriends you may as well own it.

It's frilly and it's fancy and it's infuriatingly mushy and Tailgate insists you pick him up and hold him so he's the same height as Cyclonus when they kiss which is, like, the _most_ exceedingly mushy thing imaginable. You're secretly delighted, but don't tell anyone. 

You’re still waiting for things to come crashing down when you leave, altmodes running loops over each other on the way to Tetrahex, and for a long time afterward, but eventually, you wake up one morning and you just know, the way you know how to pump fuel and fire a gun, you’ve done something right for once.


End file.
